Eldorado

Obviously, everyone's gaming experience is different. I don't think I run with hardcore players myself; I think most of the people I team with range from "casual player" to "pretty serious but not rabid about it." And I read/skim parts of the forums regularly. Still, I was aware of Alignment Merits and their pitfalls early -- apparently I was just lucky.

I agree that the speed of cashing in earned A-merits is pointless; I agree on respecting the side-switching design. If by "rate of A-merit conversion" you mean "how fast people can spend earned A-merits" I agree there as well!

(Of course, if you mean how fast someone could take a huge pile of "old" merits and convert them to A-merits, I'm only partly with you. I'm sure there was SOME sort of logic in place to prevent of flood of previously unbuyable purples and PvP IO's from appearing, but I'M not sure that the rate couldn't be somewhat higher. ONE alignment merit a day seems kind of low, when some regular recipes sell for two A-merits. Thirty alignment merits a day seems -- well, kind of high. I'd have expected somewhere between 2 and maybe 5 or 10, perhaps.)

Starting off by putting words in my mouth just hurts the rest of your post. At no point did I say "everyone is supposed to play exactly the same way" that I do, and a lot of people would probably get bored if they tried. There's often a lot of (too much?) standing around and talking about all sorts of things, but that's also where I learn about some in-game "stuff", as mentioned further above.

I also learn about stuff from reading the forums, global chat channels, and even Paragon Wiki. There's a nice succinct writeup on A-merits over at http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Alignment_Merit that includes the 20 hour timer info.

I'm not sure why you started in with the "profound apologies" since I certainly wasn't targeting YOU with a nice, vague, all-encompassing "they", which was meant to include ALL the people who've been suddenly surprised about this each and every day since Issue 18 and not just ones who were surprised on Day 58. Since you DID seem to take it personally, though, let ME apologize as well and reiterate that I was not attacking you as the OP. I'm not sure how many threads there have been, exactly, but I know there have been a few on the Market forum alone, which is only logical since the game got an added "currency" or way to get "stuff" -- and I'm sorry that you missed all of those threads.

That being said, I find that reading guides posted by people in beta as soon as the closed beta boards opened is somewhat akin to reading the shiny, picture-filled brochure the car dealer gives you when you go to look at the newly introduced model. They're both half-full of conjecture, "concept car" and "artist's conception" and "details not finalized." Reading other parts of the forums or other sites AFTER the new issue is released is more like reading Car and Driver's "First Drive Review" or Consumer Reports.

In this case, the new A-merits and the limit on how fast you can SPEND them seems a lot like the "finely tuned, sexy roadster with attention to detail everywhere except in the plastic-y dashboard, with a steering wheel they must have stolen from an '86 Yugo."

It's not about thinking hard, it's about a hypothetical detente between the hardcore, purpled-out farmer and the hypothetical "casual player." The way they've got it set up, they can slow the hardcore down to the same side-switching rate as a moderately casual player who can devote an hour a night for two nights. (And yeah, don't even ask me if "an hour a night" is still casual, or if a "casual player" can still bang out 5 tips and a morality in an hour with his badly slotted, badly built build. :P )

What will happen down the road? The markets will collapse, farming will all but vanish, every subscriber will get a free puppy or kitten, and Miss Liberty will hand out free purples just for the asking!

Yeah, I'm kidding. It's downright INEFFICIENT for you to be hoarding merits so you can save 20 million merits, when you COULD blow two merits on something worth well over a HUNDRED million merits (maybe 150 million crafted) and IO out your toon in 20% of the time.

But by all means, have fun playing the game the way you want to -- it's your $14.95 a month. We'll be over here beating stuff up with our IO'd ALTS while you're in the middle of your "slow going" on your project.

PS -- "Fight other bidders for the privilege"?! Here's a protip: bid 21 million INF, or 20.2 million and cut straight to the head of the line of those people who are all bidding 20 million exactly.

People discovering this "news" 58 days after Issue 18 launched is kind of ridiculous to me. Perhaps if they hadn't been saving for those purples but instead had spent AN alignment merit they'd have seen the message in the vendor window, or I KNOW this information is in other threads here. No clue when it was announced in the open beta GR forums but I'm sure it was more than two months ago. "Informed buying decision" and all that good stuff....

If anybody's dumb enough to leave an MMO because they can't get COMMON stuff, what's going to happen when they want something uncommon or rare? (Of course, if they want purples they simply come to the Market Forum and kvetch loudly.) Still, if they can't put in a lowball bid and WAIT AN HOUR, I shall miss them and the crazy BUY IT NAO! amounts of inf they give me.

As Roderick says, there's already a metric crapton of ways to get stuff in this game, and they just keep adding more! Alignment merits, anyone? That's right -- go solo 20 missions on -1/x1, sell that LotG Recharge recipe for 102 million and you can buy 20,198 inert gases for 5050 inf, which they're going for right now.

The problem in this game isn't GETTING stuff, it's educating people on all the places they CAN get stuff.

We already have an AE building in every zone that will "sell" you all the white salvage you can carry for 8 tickets a pop, with a 1 in 6 chance of you getting the right kind on each roll!

Yet we still see million INF inert gases and such during some non-peak periods -- I see the goofy prices start when the West coast players go to bed and stay that way 'till dawn here on the East coast. And if the prices get TOO goofy, I go burn a couple hundred tickets, get what I need, and sell and profit from the rest.

STEP 0. Buyer makes an alt on the seller's server.

1. see above

2. see above

3. see above

4. Buyer uses global e-mail to move their new item from buyer's new alt to buyer's toon that wants it. Buyer is responsible for not making typo in their own global e-mail address.

Is adding steps 0 and 4 more hassle? Of course, but if someone's got three billion INF laying around they've probably made an alt or two before. It's not like making a new toon is as complicated as neurosurgery.
Is adding steps 0 and 4 worth it to people who are worried about getting ripped off? Yeah, more than likely.

That's what I'd thought too -- sometimes SR seems to me to be even more of a "binary" health bar set than regen, which also lacks resistances out of the box. Either your health bar is green and on "Full", or it's on "Empty."

THAT just made me think of:

"I'm the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn't very nice."

Of course, around the scrapper forum it's a collective, plural "we" thing, but the same sentiment applies!!

...and now I'm torn between properly attributing that quote or saying something properly belligerent, indignant, and scrapper-like such as "If you gotta look THAT up, bub, what are you doin' in the SCRAPPER forum!?"

I didn't even have any 50's at that point, but my 40-somethings were all sitting on 10-30 million.

You could buy enhancements, costume changes, throw the influence at your insanely expensive base, give it to friends or twink new toons so at least THEY could afford SO's at level 22. I only semi-fondly recall streetsweeping south Independence Port in my mid-20's so I'd always be solvent for my level 27 SO's, and I had friends that were even more destitute. (What? South IP worked -- every other mob on the street had some poor shakedown victim or innocent bystander who'd give me EXTRA influence after the last bad guy was defeated!) But pretty much everybody could afford SO's by 32!

Real life pulled me away from the game before the Market and IO's came out, and I had the same sort of "new player's shock" when I came back in the fall of '07.

"Holy CRAP! Some of these recipes cost HOW MUCH?! And I've got...um...a tiny percentage of that on all my toons combined. How am I ever going to be able to afford that stuff?" I whined -- very briefly.

"But...people will pay me how much for this recipe thingie that I can't even use?! AH HA!! Problem solved!"



Today, I'm not even sure how many billions I've spent on my toons, but those old days of walking between Terra Volta and the Green Line, uphill both ways, barefoot in the snow really wasn't all that awesome.

Some people ARE awesome out of the box, but it's also important for the newcomer to realize that yeah -- a very small percentage of players overall are doing the crazy stuff and it's mostly the forum regulars, since where else can we brag abou...share these things?! But the number of informative posts might lead some new players to think that EVERYBODY's doing it....

1) For some reason, I always manage to forget about those two of Iggy's achievements, perhaps because they're overshadowed by the sheer number of "hey, soloed a pylon" threads. But they're both huge achievements, IMHO!

2) I hereby nominate "Stupid Scrapper Tricks" as the official name of those scrapper stunts that should probably be preceded by a disclaimer! Maybe we need a thread by that name, too?

You may be another crazy scrapper, but you're not crazy crazy. I'm the guilty party -- posted it and then saw the "hope I didn't stir something up" part and deleted it before adding fuel to the fire -- sorry! Then again, I'd stated that I was pretty sure Werner would have the exact numbers and looks like I was right!

For me, it's ALL about the fun here! The way I see it, you can pick a pair of scrapper powersets, try it out, and if it's not your particular type of fun, just roll another scrapper. Unless you've done something really goofy with slotting or power pool picks, the old scrapper won't be a BAD toon, just not what you might be looking for. AND you can always go back and take the old one out of limbo later. "My new scrapper has plenty of X but no so much Y...hey! That OLD scrapper that I wasn't wild about HAD plenty of Y, come to think of it!" where X and Y may stand for "single target carnage," "AoE mayhem," "knockdown, -up and or -back," "crowd control" or anything else.

Agreed, and agreed -- Willpower today is a lot like Regen back in Issue 1, which is to say "turn on your toggles when you log in, and then go smack down bad guys" without worrying about micromanaging toggles. And for that, it works pretty darn well.

I can't totally agree with this part, though. If you're looking to do relatively normal PvE stuff, even at increased difficulty levels, I've watched my heavily IO'd WP scrappers stand up to abuse that some heavily IO'd SR friends faceplant against. I've got three WP scrappers that can stand up to the "old" "RWZ scrapper challenge" of one level 54 spawn, three bosses, no inspirations, no temp powers, and am pretty happy with their performance overall.

Now, if you want the seriously awesome, completely over-the-top potential that you read about here in the scrapper forum -- the stuff that I think should come with a disclaimer* like soloing pylons -- I'll agree with Syntax42. I feel that Willpower's already built for durability, like some truck motors, and thus lacks the routinely ultra-high rev speed of Super Reflexes' Quickness or the nitrous oxide boost of Shield's Against All Odds.

*Seriously, sometimes I think we need a disclaimer here on the scrapper forums, more so than other forums.

"These stunts were performed by a heavily played, highly experienced scrapper with an essentially unlimited budget. New players should not attempt this in your first __ months of playing CoX. You should not attempt these stunts with a budget of less than __ billion INF. Your mileage will of course vary, and will most likely include multiple faceplants en route to -- hopefully -- success."

tl;dr: Mostly "yeah, what they said." Poster feels that Willpower is still very workable for late-game, high level PvE hijinks at increased difficulty with IO's, but IS NOT as suitable for THE highest tier scrapper insanity such as soloing pylons or soloing multiple AV's as other secondaries are.

It IS an awful way to do business! I mean, they have to resort to MIND CONTROL tricks during television programs -- and the amazing thing is, it actually works!

"Gee, I'm hungry, but I don't want to get my lazy butt off the couch during this football game. I wonder what...mmmmmmmm! Pizza!"

One phone call or a few mouseclicks later, some guy appears at your door with food!

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke

(That's right, I've just lumped Pizza Hut and advertising in with magic and mind control. Let the wild internet rumors begin! Muwahaha! )

Since I'm not exactly a computer genius myself, it's my UNDERSTANDING that simply typing "/maxinactivefps 5" into the chat box in each instance will do the same thing, which is making the inactive instance not draw as many frames per second and making your computer run more smoothly.

Since I've been able to dual box for a while, but haven't done much of it 'till recently, I've been doing it that way. I'd been unaware that I could just add that "flag" at the end of my COH shortcut until I saw this thread -- thanks, Rajani Isa!!

I've also been running in full-screen mode, and just using "alt+tab" to switch between the two accounts. Don't know what that's doing to my performance, but since I prefer full-screen and hate dragging my trays around when I stop dual-boxing, it's working for me so far.

Thirded on the "THE best" doubt. Somewhere around here -- and didn't it used to be stickied?! -- were a couple of threads ranking DPS chains. (I thought BillZBubba started it, or posted a lot in it, but can't find the darn thing now.)

I remember reading it and thinking "hey, my main is in the top third or half at least!" but I wasn't terribly surprised to NOT see it at the top of the heap.

I've been playing DB since the day Issue 11 launched; I started off setting the tray for 1, 2, 3 and 1, 2, 4 for the first two "OMG they're awful!" combos which still come in handy occasionally or when exemped. When I picked up Attack Vitals, I rearranged the tray and completely threw myself off, so I'm quite happy with using the powers in the order in which I got them. (And of course, the next tray button "lights up" to teach the new DB player the order of the attacks.) Your mileage may vary, but I don't even notice reaching for the "8" key unless I overshoot and hit the "9."

I had a great laugh when a DB/SR bragged about their being able to do more DPS by just spamming Attack Vitals over and over, while I alternated AV with Sweep. Yes, they were doing more DPS but kept faceplanting against the same mobs in the mission. "That's because I'm knocking them down three times as often so they can't attack me, and so I'm still standing at the end of the fight. Here, have another wakie."

I think that too many people worry ONLY about DPS. I care more about "Damage Per Hour." And it's really hard to do damage when you're laying facedown on the mission floor.
I'm the same way -- I'd rather use all the tools at my disposal for a toon. I mean, I COULD have made a melee-only blaster/blapper (and tried, and went back to scrappers) or a petless Dual Pistols mastermind (no, I didn't) but I find well-rounded and balanced characters more fun to play.

I'm sure there are people who only take three or four attacks on a DB scrapper, but at that point, what's the difference between that and a katana or broadsword scrapper -- besides the animations and style points? "I have one more sword than you do!"

One of the great things about CoX is how much it can vary between AT's, powersets, and even players and STILL be tons of fun!

I have a trio of Dual Blades/WP toons -- scrapper, tank, and brute. I call the scrapper my "main" and after hours (and hours and hours) of play only rarely find myself thinking about combos. My fingers just set them off automatically, generally alternating AV and Sweep, and I only find myself thinking "well, NOW what?!" if I miss on one combo, abort it, go to another combo and miss on that one as well. There's no knockback to consider unless I'm fighting something lower level than me, only a flurry of blades and no thinking to speak of besides "how do I take this giant Cuisinart from Spawn A to Spawn B the fastest?" and "hey, this spawn's done for -- now can I get all the way over to that other one and still land my Sweeping Strike in time? Ooooh -- yes!!"

After playing those toons for a year or more, and having read on these forums about just how awesome Claws is and about its big numbers and DB-like mitigation, I created a Claws/(same secondary as the others) scrapper. It is indeed an awesome powerset, and fun, and survivable and...and....

...and I apparently don't play the Claws toon nearly enough to have developed the same sort of Zen-like non-thinking that I've achieved with Dual Blades.

Efficient aiming of the cone attack with claws isn't the problem -- there's two of them in DB, after all -- but I'm still not used to Shockwave.

"GAH! It's knockBACK, not knockDOWN!" *chases after another suddenly-flying villain*

Since AF Bill is talking about taking Willpower as a secondary as well, it just seems really counter-intuitive to use Shockwave and thus knock enemies back out of Rise to the Challenge's range. "More damage! Less healing! But they'll all be standing up and not attacking for a few seconds. And I'll have to chase whatever I'm scrapperlocked onto, thus cutting into my DPS! Let's hope the Archon back there with the rocket launcher misses."

Oh well -- BOTH Claws and Dual Blades are fun, just like all the other scrapper primaries!

Edit: And if the phone hadn't rung halfway through my long post, I'd have beaten PrincessDarkstar to the point, instead of repeating it. Doh!

Late to the party, but I'm seriously thinking that this one is "sig-worthy"!

It seemed to me that THEY were pretty sure that they were morally superior. "Look at me, citizen! I'M ragequitting over the very PRINCIPLE of the thing! No, no, it matters not that I'll be able to disable the in-game ads, because they'll STILL BE THERE!!"

Then again, I was apparently a member of the inferior, immoral, unwashed heathen rabble who didn't immediately rise up and revolt at our horrific mistreatment at the hands of the devs, so what do I know? Besides, if I'd sell out for ephemeral promises of "better stuff" there's no telling what I'd do for, say, a free month of play and free stuff! (Oh, wait, I ran out and bought the GR Complete Collection. The horror! The horror!)

Let's not forget the huge screaming hordes...well, throngs, at least...okay, the isolated and somewhat small group of self-righteously indignant and morally superior former players who LOUDLY ragequit over being forced to endure advertising in a game they were paying for! Those threads were epic lulz.

I can remember two different ads, and the type of products advertised, but the names of both escape me, even though I never disabled the billboards. Obviously, I never bought either product, so if I'm any sort of example, no wonder they stopped running those ads.

A second generator? That's what I love about this game and this forum -- there's multiple paths to get where we want to go!

I'm currently the co-owner of three bases with 11 or 12 teleporters [yes, I know we only NEED 11!] By the time I added in beacons, computers and whatnot for control, I've been right at the power limit myself. The first time I simply connected two circuit breakers to my generator, thus saving myself the cost of an additional energy room.

The second time I came up with a few ways to simply hide a Combo Power and Control Unit in an Oversight Center, since I needed a 3x3 room anyhow -- and an Oversight Center is cheaper than a 3x3 decorative room. One Combo unit is in a false ceiling and the other...I'll have to go look again!

Exactly - it'll craft all three Tiers of empowerment buffs -- some are really handy for new, lower level toons, and then others can come in handy for specific things. Going after Malta? There's an Endurance Drain resist buff! Planning on ghosting a few missions? There's an Invisibility buff, and so on.